Wednesday, August 10, 2016

Truetone Restoration

I found this 1941 Truetone radio at a rummage sale a couple weekends back. It was pretty rough looking and missing knobs, but it was only $5 and I wanted to save it.

I discovered an old Bubble Tape box in the back.

Opening it up, I found the missing knobs. Things were looking up.

I pulled the chassis from the case.

And discovered someone else had attempted to repair it.

There were quite a few cut wires, so it wasn't looking good for a full restoration.

I liked the "claw foot" decorations.

After sanding the case down.

The original grill cloth was in poor condition, so I replaced that.

It was mounted on a piece of cardboard that was deteriorated as well, so I cut a new mount from a thin sheet of plywood.

The new speaker grill and cover.

After staining and varnishing.

The speaker was bad, so I replaced it with a this one from Walmart. It fit the spot pretty well, although I had to trim the front right corner off the chassis.

Since it wasn't a candidate for a full repair, I hooked up a small amplifier and bluetooth device directly to the speaker. I also wired some batteries into the on/off switch to the lightbulb behind the dial to give it some illumination and the illusion of a working radio.

The final product. I think it turned out pretty nice. You can actually buy new reproduction dial covers for this model on eBay, but I thought the yellowing gave it some character.